I think my favorite part of the album is that it's very Buddhist/Hindu in nature whether she intended it or not. There's a lot in the lyrics with consciousness and duality and then musically with Souretsu. That's not to say the whole thing is a Buddhist/Hindu trip, but I appreciate what's there.

__________________I'd rather have a life of "oh wells" than a life of "what ifs"

Let's get this straight:
STEM, from the single. Orchestrated, English lyrics.
Kuki, KZK CD. Experimental, Japanese lyrics.
Kuki/Stem, Casshern OST. Experimental, English lyrics.
And then the vinyl KZK Kuki is somehow different?

Kuki is the same recording, between the KZK vinyl and the Casshern OST.
So there are 3 studio versions in total.

If we widen the scope to be "versions of Kuki/STEM featured within officially-sold SR releases", then you could sum it up as:

There's Electric Mole, then there's most of the projects (albums/concerts) with Saito Neko. I'm not keeping count, since several of the different Saito Neko collaborations (inside and outside of studio) were performed almost exactly the same way. *queue up the "haters gonna hate" responses*

__________________
You know Tokyo Jihen is a supergroup, when you can't blame most of the members for wanting to pursue other projects.

Sorry for not following the current discussion, but I'd like to know if there has ever been a debate about the cover art of KZK (I'm not being able to find any relevant information), and by extension all of the album covers, being rather curious about the Heisei Fuuzoku one.

It's not Kuki, it's STEM. STEM is the reading that should be used in this particular case for the kanji 茎. That's what Japanese artists like to do.
Checking wikipedia,
The reading (in bold) is "Sutemu Daimyou Asobi Hen". There's no "Kuki" there, even though it's the dictionary reading for 茎.

Or is it read different on the album?

It's absolutely Stem everywhere but KSK/HF... and I'm really unsure if it should be "Stem" there too, even though there is nothing to indicate that, no furigana to make us read it anything besides "Kuki." I can't seem to get that confirmed one way or the other... very frustrating.

So, I was thinking about how KZK is supposed to be a very "Japanese" album, and I realized something: There is very, very little English.

Usually, Shiina doesn't insert random English words into her lyrics anyways, but especially in KZK:

EDIT: Shuukyou has "colors" and "mellow", sung in English, but written as Kanji in the lyrics.
Meisai has the word "concrete" in katakana
Kuki has "door" in katakana (though I notice this is increasingly common in spoken Japanese instead of "tobira"), and then the words "entry number one".
Ishiki has the word "camouflage" in katakana

Also, those are the three songs on the single

And that's the extent of the English in KZK. Compare to SS and especially MM, which has entire verses in English.